Are you saying you, or other Christians, are always tempted to rape children but only your fear of afterlife punishment holds you back? And this makes you morally superior people?
I remember when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I recall an adult friend of my family saying something negative about atheists. I asked what atheists were, and she told me “Atheists don’t believe in god, they worship satan”, and I remember thinking even at age 7: “If they don’t believe in god, why would they believe in satan?”
Lots of adults weren’t as critical as I was at age 7 though, apparently.
Firstly, I didn’t call her a moron because she’s a very nice lady and she wasn’t being mean or wishing something ill upon me and my son. She was genuinely concerned. She likes both me and my son and didn’t want anything bad to happen to us.
She’s also an intelligent person. Or she’s usually an intelligent person. Which was why I was shocked that she believes that someone who has no belief in any gods would worship anything at all, much less an evil angel cast from heaven. I did tell her that he doesn’t believe in Satan either.
In another conversation a long while ago, she did state that she believes a person can’t be good unless they believe in God. So she’s sure that I do believe, deep down, because I’m good. I told her that I find it a lot more scary to think that the only thing keeping everyone from killing and stealing and raping the crap out of everyone else is fear of retribution. My world-- where people are good for the sake of being good-- is far more comforting.
Also, it was my son’s fault I had this conversation in the first place by answering her farewell “God bless!” with “Nah, I’m chillin’ with Xenu today.” She knew he was joking but. . . she couldn’t help but warn me about how, without God in his life, he may very well end up worshiping Satan.
And I didn’t say, “That’s gotta be the stupidest thing you have ever said to me.” which is proof positive you don’t need God to be good.
That part of my post was because, for the longest time, I thought Satanists did worship the Satan you described. It’s something so prevalent in the evangelical community that plays are made about the dangers of Satanism–and they always include human sacrifice.
So I still think it’s funny that Satanists don’t believe in Satan.
Well, they believe all sorts of things. But yeah, generally speaking, Satanists “believe in” Satan like you an I believe in Uncle Sam. As a fictional character who stands in our minds for a certain group of characteristics. In the case of Satan in the view of Satanists, those characteristics would be individuality, personal accountability and being your own master, not the slave of anyone else, no matter how good or powerful they seem to be.
I thought it was Jerry Lee Lewis who said that.
Thank God for one thing - haven’t seen the 3:16 guy with his dopey sign sitting behind home plate at the televised baseball games in quite awhile.
I’ve got the ad inviting me to train to be a motorcycle mechanic, which fits the thread, kind of.
[ol]
[li]One way to interpret this is like if it were raining outside, and she told you to take an umbrella, or else you’ll get wet. And you reply, “I don’t need an umbrella, it’s not raining, I won’t get wet!” To her, of course it’s raining! Of course you’ll get wet! Substitute (sorta) Satan for raining, and God for an umbrella.[/li][li]When she says “worship Satan”, she doesn’t mean literally put on special clothes, show up at the worship place, and repeat special phrases. She just means one would inadvertently follow the path of Satan. Which to her is quite clear (sin, etc.).[/li][/ol]
This. God, Satan. I’m not buying this monotheistic claptrap. There’s at the very least two super dudes at work here.
It just happens that one beat the other at having a fluff piece ghost written by a bunch of goat shepherds.
Seems foolish to be angry with God either way. An actual God would take you for a fool and cut you some slack if you were somehow angry with it. And what are you going to do, smite God? Seems logically impossible for theist and atheist alike.
Well for one thing, I’ve noticed that there’s a subset of Christians who divide the world into two, and only two groups. Christians exactly like themselves, and Atheistic Liberal Satanic Communist Muslim Homosexuals. There’s Us and Them, and everyone who isn’t Us is all part of the same evil group of Them. The Christians are Right, everyone knows they are Right, and those who oppose them are all part of the same vague conspiracy that knowingly opposes the One True Way.
But yeah, generally speaking, Satanists “believe in” Satan like you an I believe in Uncle Sam. As a fictional character who stands in our minds for a certain group of characteristics. In the case of Satan in the view of Satanists, those characteristics would be individuality, personal accountability and being your own master, not the slave of anyone else, no matter how good or powerful they seem to be.
